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Girl, 13, rescued from rock slide that killed 5

13-YEAR-OLD SURVIVES: Chaffee County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Everson, right, and other deputies walk out the Agnes Vaille Falls trail shortly after leaving the scene of a rock slide that killed five people Monday, Sept. 30, 2013, in Chaffee County, Colo. Deputies who reached the area rescued a teenage girl who suffered a broken leg but had to pull back after rocks kept falling from a cliff and a boulder field with rocks estimated at weighing more than 100 tons began shifting. Rescuers were to return to the site Wednesday. Photo: Associated Press/AP Photo/P. Solomon Banda

BUENA VISTA, Colo. (AP) — A sheriff’s deputy says the teenage girl who survived a Colorado rock slide told authorities that her father protected her from the falling rocks.

All five people who were killed and the teenage girl who survived were members of the same family. Their names and ages haven’t been released.

The girl was airlifted to a Denver hospital with a broken leg after being dug out by rescuers.

Deputy Nick Tolsma said he saw her hand sticking out from the rocks and helped pull her out. He said she told him that her father covered her as the boulders fell, saving her life.

Chaffee County Undersheriff John Spezze said the family was from nearby Buena Vista, Colo.

A search team set out Tuesday to recover the bodies.

Four of the bodies can probably be recovered using hand tools, but special equipment will be needed to dislodge a huge boulder and retrieve the fifth body, said David Noltensmeyer of the North End Search and Rescue team.

He said the team might try moving the boulder with a heavy inflatable bag that firefighters use to lift large vehicles during rescues.

The trail is one of the first hikes recommended to people new to the area and is also popular with tourists, said Margaret Dean, a regular hiker who has walked the trail with her 7-year-old grandson.

Dean, a copy assistant at The Mountain Mail newspaper in Salida, said the trail is easily accessible and provides a view of the falls and the Chalk Creek Valley in Collegiate Peaks, which contains mountains over 14,000-feet tall.

Agnes Vaille, the waterfall’s namesake, was a Denver mountaineer who died in 1925 while attempting a difficult winter climb of Longs Peak, which rises to 14,259 feet.

The U.S. Forest Service maintains the trail. Spezze said officials have asked the Forest Service for a permanent closure.

The Forest Service says the trail got medium to heavy usage. The trailhead lies across from Chalk Lake campground and is near the St. Elmo ghost town, a popular stop for tourists in Colorado’s central mountains.